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Thunivu & Varisu Opening Weekend Box Office: A tie between Ajith Kumar & Thalapathy Vijay with 37.5 crore each
While the Ajith Kumar film has clocked an opening weekend of Rs 37.50 crore in Tamil Nadu, the Thalapathy Vijay film stands at Rs 37.00 crore. Detailed box office collection report
The Pongal 2023 clash is as tight as it gets as both the releases – the Ajith Kumar fronted Thunivu and the Thalapathy Vijay starrer Varisu – are doing neck to neck business at the Tamil Nadu box office. According to our tracking, Thunivu scored 3 day opening weekend of Rs 37.50 crore gross in Tamil Nadu. The movie opened at Rs 21.00 crore on Wednesday, followed by Thursday and Friday of Rs 8.50 crore and 8.000 crore respectively. While the film has seen a downward trend over the three days, it isn’t exactly a reason to worry as the Pongal festival begins from Saturday.
Ajith Kumar's Thunivu set for a good run in Tamil Nadu
The H Vinoth directed film has strong advances for Saturday and Sunday, benefitting big time by the Pongal celebrations. One can expect a jump of 30 percent on both the days, taking the 5-day opening weekend total to Rs 61 crore. The Pongal benefit will continue on Monday and Tuesday too, and by the end of run, the business of the Ajith Kumar film should be good enough to put all the stakeholders in the black. The film stands a strong chance of hitting a state gross of Rs 100 crore by the end of it’s run, however, it’s the hold in collections on Monday that will decide on the chances of hitting the 3-digit number.
The Boney Kapoor and Zee Studios Production faced a clash from Varisu at the box office and if not for the clash, the first weekend business would have been higher by at-least 40 to 50 percent. Thunivu scored a lead over Varisu on the first day primarily due to the support of distributor, Red Giant, who have the film a wider release as far as screen capacity is concerned. The gap between the two films narrowed down on Thursday and Friday, with Varisu scoring a lead on the third day. The weekend will now decide which of the two films get’s a lead in numbers in Tamil.
Talking of Varisu, the Vijay fronted family drama is also doing very good business in Tamil Nadu, though the trajectory of drops on day 2 and 3 is similar. After scoring Rs 20 crore on its opening day, Varisu scored Rs 8.75 crore on its second day, followed by 8.25 crore on it’s third day. The weekend total of Varisu stands at Rs 37 crore, and much like Thunivu, even Varisu is looking at big jumps on Saturday and Sunday. In-fact, given the family genre, it is likely to show a slightly better trajectory in the festive period in the state, with an expected weekend of Rs 62 crore. It would be hoping to hit a century in the state through it’s 10 day run, though at the moment it is Rs 50 lakh short of the Ajith film in domestic market.
The Thalapathy Vijay starrer would have scored a much bigger opening weekend, but it’s the clash which has dented its prospects. The film will however make up for the initial loss of revenue through its run during the festive period. Both Thunivu and Varisu are rather running neck to neck at the box office with a slight lead for Thunivu in the overall scheme of things. It would be interesting to see which of the two films take the lead from hereon, as the trend going forward will decide the real Pongal winner.
Thalapathy Vijay's Varisu takes the lead over Thunivu at All India level
Talking of all India business, the three-day weekend lead is taken by Thalapathy Vijay’s Varisu, and that too without a Telugu dubbed release. Varisu has scored a 3-day opening weekend gross in the north of Rs 53 crore, which includes Rs 1.50 crore from the Hindi dubbed version. The three day all India gross of Thunivu stands a little under Rs 50 crore. In the long run, but the films will clock the Rs 100 crore number with ease at the all-India level and the real challenge would be to see how soon do they hit a century in the domestic market. The gap between the two films at all India level will increase further from tomorrow as Varisu is finally set to see a release in Telugu too.
Pongal is a huge period for the box office in Tamil Nadu. In 2019, the clash between Rajinikanth’s Petta and Ajith’s Viswasam yielded over Rs. 230 crores at the Tamil Nadu box office, which was more than 50 per cent higher than the then-biggest grosser in the state Baahubali 2. In fact, the combined sum of Petta and Viswasam even exceeds the current biggest grosser Ponniyin Selvan. The initial reception for Varisu and Thunivu seems acceptable and the hope will be that the combined box office of the two hit the new high in Tamil Nadu, possibly hit the Rs. 300 crores mark.
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